Nigerian “Underpant Bomber” Sues US Govt.

The Nigerian citizen serving life in prison for trying to set off a bomb in his underwear on a plane on Christmas Day in 2009 is suing the US Justice Department for denying him his free speech and religious rights, reports Reuters news agency.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab says that prison authorities were not allowing him to communicate with the outside world or practice his religion as a Muslim, Reuters adds.

In 2012 he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for attempting to blow up a plane going from Amsterdam to Detroit as a would-be suicide mission for al-Qaeda.

Abdulmutallab was badly burned when a bomb sewn into his underwear failed to detonate fully, prosecutors said at the time.